Seniors Contest

I agree with Casey... but I'd rephrase it in a less politically correct
way:

There are some pilots who train for a racing environment and many who
don't. No surprise then that the latter are incompetent in some of the
basic skills of racing. Like taking off with water, centering thermals,
gaggle etiquette, and finishing. As finishes are highly regulated (a
requirement for safety), one way to short cut ignorance is to change
them into something we can all do. LCD. The inertia of ignorance and
lassitude will always overcome skill and enthusiasm (sadly, by shear
force of numbers).

There is nothing inherently dangerous in a line finish accomplished by
skillful pilots exercising good judgement. There IS unbounded risk in
any maneuver attempted by pilots who take the environment too lightly.
If you don't want to improve your skills, why compete? That's the point
of it, after all. To compare yourself to others... to enter into a
rivalry. When you meet someone better, you tip your hat to his or her
skills and accomplishments, then redouble your efforts to improve your
own. If that doesn't sound like your cup of tea, stop competing and
start attending soaring camps. They're fun too.

And, of course, there's the simplest solution of all. If you have to
race, but don't like finish lines, then finish high. You are allowed to
do that. If I thought that the finish line was inherently dangerous,
I'd be up there with you. God knows I do my level best to keep a good
distance between me and the prestart gaggle -- whenever I can. Now if
you want to improve safety, put some effort into that!

Kilo Charlie wrote:
Every single one of these is a stall spin accident. They are
examples of
poor judgement and are not different than any other stall spin
accident....e.g. from base to final. To suggest that this is not
related to
judgement but to the gate is a huge stretch. Some are not even
contest
flights and are therefore unrelated to finish gates at all.

An example of an accident that is related to the finish gate is if
there
were a midair at the gate.

So it brings back to attempting to legislate good judgement.

Casey Lenox
KC
Phoenix

I'm kinda new at this, but here's my two cents worth. There is an
advantage to a finish line that we don't see with a cylinder finish.
Everyone is funneled through a fairly precise point so we know where to
look for traffic and we have a fairly good idea how their pattern to
land will look. In a cylinder finish, all bets are off and every type
of pattern entry known to man from every possible direction is
accomplished along with often unpredictable results, this is especially
bad during a MAT or when different classes are finishing from different
directions. There are ways to solve this but it makes things more
complicated than a simple finish line.

FM


remove nospam to reply

wrote:
I agree with Casey... but I'd rephrase it in a less politically correct
way:

There are some pilots who train for a racing environment and many who
don't. No surprise then that the latter are incompetent in some of the
basic skills of racing. Like taking off with water, centering thermals,
gaggle etiquette, and finishing. As finishes are highly regulated (a
requirement for safety), one way to short cut ignorance is to change
them into something we can all do. LCD. The inertia of ignorance and
lassitude will always overcome skill and enthusiasm (sadly, by shear
force of numbers).

There is nothing inherently dangerous in a line finish accomplished by
skillful pilots exercising good judgement. There IS unbounded risk in
any maneuver attempted by pilots who take the environment too lightly.
If you don't want to improve your skills, why compete? That's the point
of it, after all. To compare yourself to others... to enter into a
rivalry. When you meet someone better, you tip your hat to his or her
skills and accomplishments, then redouble your efforts to improve your
own. If that doesn't sound like your cup of tea, stop competing and
start attending soaring camps. They're fun too.

And, of course, there's the simplest solution of all. If you have to
race, but don't like finish lines, then finish high. You are allowed to
do that. If I thought that the finish line was inherently dangerous,
I'd be up there with you. God knows I do my level best to keep a good
distance between me and the prestart gaggle -- whenever I can. Now if
you want to improve safety, put some effort into that!

Kilo Charlie wrote:

Every single one of these is a stall spin accident. They are

examples of

poor judgement and are not different than any other stall spin
accident....e.g. from base to final. To suggest that this is not

related to

judgement but to the gate is a huge stretch. Some are not even

contest

flights and are therefore unrelated to finish gates at all.

An example of an accident that is related to the finish gate is if

there

were a midair at the gate.

So it brings back to attempting to legislate good judgement.

Casey Lenox
KC
Phoenix

The 5km finish cylinder procedure with 200m min agl which I am used to has
no traffic problems at all.

--
Bert Willing

ASW20 "TW"


"Fred Mueller" a écrit dans le message de
news: ...
I'm kinda new at this, but here's my two cents worth. There is an
advantage to a finish line that we don't see with a cylinder finish.
Everyone is funneled through a fairly precise point so we know where to
look for traffic and we have a fairly good idea how their pattern to land
will look. In a cylinder finish, all bets are off and every type of
pattern entry known to man from every possible direction is accomplished
along with often unpredictable results, this is especially bad during a
MAT or when different classes are finishing from different directions.
There are ways to solve this but it makes things more complicated than a
simple finish line.

FM


remove nospam to reply

wrote:
I agree with Casey... but I'd rephrase it in a less politically correct
way:

There are some pilots who train for a racing environment and many who
don't. No surprise then that the latter are incompetent in some of the
basic skills of racing. Like taking off with water, centering thermals,
gaggle etiquette, and finishing. As finishes are highly regulated (a
requirement for safety), one way to short cut ignorance is to change
them into something we can all do. LCD. The inertia of ignorance and
lassitude will always overcome skill and enthusiasm (sadly, by shear
force of numbers).

There is nothing inherently dangerous in a line finish accomplished by
skillful pilots exercising good judgement. There IS unbounded risk in
any maneuver attempted by pilots who take the environment too lightly.
If you don't want to improve your skills, why compete? That's the point
of it, after all. To compare yourself to others... to enter into a
rivalry. When you meet someone better, you tip your hat to his or her
skills and accomplishments, then redouble your efforts to improve your
own. If that doesn't sound like your cup of tea, stop competing and
start attending soaring camps. They're fun too.

And, of course, there's the simplest solution of all. If you have to
race, but don't like finish lines, then finish high. You are allowed to
do that. If I thought that the finish line was inherently dangerous,
I'd be up there with you. God knows I do my level best to keep a good
distance between me and the prestart gaggle -- whenever I can. Now if
you want to improve safety, put some effort into that!

Kilo Charlie wrote:

Every single one of these is a stall spin accident. They are

examples of

poor judgement and are not different than any other stall spin
accident....e.g. from base to final. To suggest that this is not

related to

judgement but to the gate is a huge stretch. Some are not even

contest

flights and are therefore unrelated to finish gates at all.

An example of an accident that is related to the finish gate is if

there

were a midair at the gate.

So it brings back to attempting to legislate good judgement.

Casey Lenox
KC
Phoenix

Fred Mueller wrote:

I'm kinda new at this,

New enough that you haven't used a finish line with the ground at the
bottom? If you haven't, it might be harder to understand how it works
out in practice.

but here's my two cents worth. There is an
advantage to a finish line that we don't see with a cylinder finish.
Everyone is funneled through a fairly precise point so we know where to
look for traffic and we have a fairly good idea how their pattern to
land will look. In a cylinder finish, all bets are off and every type
of pattern entry known to man from every possible direction is
accomplished along with often unpredictable results,

I don't see this happening in the contests I've flown with large, high
cylinder finishes. All the pilots that had a good finish have been able
to use the standard pattern to land. Pilots that did not have a good
finish often used non-standard patterns, such as rolling finishes or no
downwind leg, and so on.

this is especially
bad during a MAT or when different classes are finishing from different
directions.

My experience is the low finish line is worse in these conditions,
because the pilots are NOT being "funneled" (brought along a small angle
sector) to a precise point: they arriving_ spread out more or less along
the line from many different directins, including 180 degrees apart,
with some hooking the gate and doing a very non-standard pattern entry.
I've even seen 180s after a finish, with the glider landing back into
the oncoming finishers.

--
Change "netto" to "net" to email me directly

Eric Greenwell
Washington State
USA

Eric Greenwell wrote:
Fred Mueller wrote:

I'm kinda new at this,


New enough that you haven't used a finish line with the ground at the
bottom? If you haven't, it might be harder to understand how it works
out in practice.


Not that new.

Fred

My experience is th low finish line is worse in these conditions,
because the pilots are NOT being "funneled" (brought along a small
angle
sector) to a precise point: they arriving_ spread out more or less
along
the line from many different directins, including 180 degrees apart,
with some hooking the gate and doing a very non-standard pattern
entry.
I've even seen 180s after a finish, with the glider landing back into

the oncoming finishers.

--
Change "netto" to "net" to email me directly

Eric Greenwell
Washington State
USA

I'm still on the fence on this one, but here's my "philosophy" on
rules. I think the primary purpose of the rules should be to protect
me from you (the imperial you - not any of the current posters :-), not
to protect me from myself. With that in mind, I feel like mid-air
collision avoidance should be the primary purpose of the finishing
routine, whether it be gate or cylinder. Given my very selfish goal,
which finishing routine does a better job? I have to say that in my
first 15 years of racing using a high speed gate, I really never had
any close calls. I found the situational awareness to be relatively
manageable given good radio ettiquette and a reaonable level of
professionalism among the other competitors. I have a lot less
experience with the cylinder, but my recollection from the few that
I've flown was a slightly increased nervousness about people
approaching from numerous directions, resulting in more slumped
shoulders (ie. trying to make myself feel like a small target).

So, which finishing routine does a better job of facilitating the
avoidance of a midair?

Erik Mann
LS8-18 (P3)

I am a fairly new contest pilot, flying in sport's class in the
northeast.
If I had a competitive glider I might consider standard/15m class.

So take my comments as someone who has never had to do a gate finish
for real, but has considered them, practiced them and does consider
them inherently dangerous.

There is nothing inherently dangerous in a line finish accomplished
by
skillful pilots exercising good judgement.

I consider them to be inherently dangerous because the solution for
the fastest time pushes the pilot towards a very dangerous flying
situation.

Flying at best speed to fly for the last thermal all the way to 50agl
at the finish line. For my Grob102, if I was in a 4 knot thermal
that's 79 knots.
Also it's a 25/1 glide ration so at 1 nm away I am at 290 feet, 2nm at
540 feet. This seems pretty dangerous to me. If I hit sink, then I am
landing wherever the sink hit me, without any chance for picking a
field, flying a pattern, etc. Even if don't hit sink, I am still only
set up to land straight ahead past the finish line.

So most pilots add some safety margin (in the form of extra potential
energy), they take the thermal higher than they should (from a speed
perspective). As they get closer to the finish line, they convert the
potential energy to speed. Then re-convert the speed to height for a
'normal' pattern.

The problem is that you score higher (faster) for a lower safety
margin.

Why not just set the minimum required safety margin for all pilots ?
The required finish altitude is just that, a minimum safety margin for
all contest pilots. The rules are saying "if you reduce the safety
margin less than this, you will not get a better score than this."

And, of course, there's the simplest solution of all. If you have to
race, but don't like finish lines, then finish high. You are allowed
to
do that.

But the rules should not provide a scoring benefit to the pilots who
decide to reduce the safety margin. I don't want to be thinking "hey,
if I really push this final glide I might make up that 20point
advantage my competitor got yesterday."

Todd Smith
3S

wrote in message
ups.com...

There is nothing inherently dangerous in a line finish accomplished by
skillful pilots exercising good judgement. There IS unbounded risk in
any maneuver attempted by pilots who take the environment too lightly.

So, let's take a few minutes off the pilot's elapsed time for a low pass.
A few more off for a low pass with an aileron roll on the upline.
Still more for an inverted low pass.
I'm sure we could come up with a graded series of maneuvers, that could all
be accomplished by skillful pilots exercising good judgement. Judges could
add time for sloppy execution.
Just think of the additional entertainment for spectators!

If you don't want to improve your skills, why compete? That's the point
snippage hath occurred

Or it might be a case of: what skills, exactly, do we want to compare when
we race?

Tim Ward